Get Ready.

The morning alarm rips me from my dream and thrusts me into the day with an unfortunate but acceptable violence, like the instant discomfort of a cold shower.

I leap across the room and fumble with my phone trying to minimize the damage to her sleep and even though I told myself I wouldn’t do it, since I’m already holding it, the first thing I do is check my phone for emails, messages, Instagram likes, Facebook comments, et al. So much has happened without my knowledge or approval or understanding.

Beep…

There is a fire alarm occasionally beeping, in need of a battery somewhere in my building.

Anxiety.

Breathe.

Ooh-ooh ahhh oohh…

The tenant in the adjacent building is practicing his R&B scales again. Two years of this shit. It’s time to move.

I put on clothes in attempt to look cool with two-year old Gap Vintage and I leave her in bed and I walk to my car and—

Wee-yo wee-yo wee-yo…

—several sirens pass at high speeds on Vine street.

It’s 7:30 AM and there’s already traffic.

I check my phone again to look at The Times because that’s what adults do and another story on Russ—

Fuck you! You fucking cunt-face motherfucker! A slightly irate driver in an SUV offers another in a Tesla.

I shake off the vitriol, get into my car and—

Ding!

—my car finds it urgent to beep at me, notifying me that I am five hundred miles overdue for service. Then—

Ding!

—it beeps again to tell me to fasten my seatbelt. These dings also come with urgent alarm signs, telling my brain that the world is quickly coming to end.

I turn the car on and pull away from the curb and—

Boo-ca-doo-wa-beep-bop-dah-doop-doop—

My phone rings. Dammit I thought it was on silent. Barclaycard is vicious and by now my heart is now pounding and my breathing is matching that of a high-speed runner and my brain is swollen and pressed up against my skull and every sensation coming into my body sends gigawatts of voltage through my body and I check the time again and—